


A memory of Blue and Green

by SPTRD



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Gen, Mostly sorta introspective bullshit, implied ereri
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-15
Updated: 2015-10-15
Packaged: 2018-04-26 10:55:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5001994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SPTRD/pseuds/SPTRD
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Eren wore the Wings of Freedom once, and they haven't let him touch solid earth since."</p>
            </blockquote>





	A memory of Blue and Green

Sometimes Eren wakes up screaming. There is no one to hear though, and no one to care. Once upon a time, Mikasa or Armin might have come rushing in, readily armed with comforting words and soothing nonsense. They had to take care of each other, after all. But now, there isn't anyone left of his past life. Occasionally he'll look back on the bright, vivid nightmares that plague him and pretend they are nothing more than just that. But in his heart, he knows. There is a truth and purity in the reality he dreams up, and a harsh cruelty as well. Nothing less than sublimely real could leave an imprint like that. 

The mornings that he opens his eyes to bloody sheets and bitten hands are the worst. Fresh tears etching tracks on his cheeks, Eren would go about cleaning up himself mechanically -- dressing his wounds, stripping his bed, and dumping the sheets into the washer. This morning is one of those mornings. Eren tries not to let the tar-like feeling of despair coating the inside of his chest weight him down too much. He has work today, after all. 

He throws his dirty laundry in with the bloodied sheets, and sets both washer and dryer. While they tumble to and fro in the soapy water, he trudges reluctantly to the kitchen in order to begin making breakfast. Light streams in from the window, discolored to gold from the thick layer of grime outside of the glass pane. It illuminates a sad, rundown apartment with peeling wallpaper of indeterminate color and cracked tile floors that fade to scratched, faux wood as the kitchen progresses to the living room. Something about an open floor plan sticks in Eren's head as he stares at the sad little line of grout separating tile from laminate. The coffee machine beeps as soon as the washing machine does, as surely as if they conspired against him. With a sigh, Eren puts off pouring himself a mug of watery caffeine, electing to return to the hall and transfer the damp wad of fabric therein from the washer to the dryer. He sets it with a crank of the old, chipped timer, and shuffles back to the kitchen. 

The sound of the neighbor's vinyls provides a comfortable and familiar backdrop of white noise to Eren's morning routine. His neighbor is a sweet old woman unwilling to accommodate her son's pleas to move into a nursing home. She is half deaf, and calls Eren a saint since he never minds when her record player gets too loud. Eren likes her because she's a fairly private person, and they can both go about their lives, none the wiser of the other. Today it's The Bee Gees. Eren hides a smile in his mug, forgetting that there is no one there to see it. 

_______________

Eren slumps against the cold metal of the park bench, narrowing his eyes against the brisk wind tossing scarves and hats alike. Pedestrians flowed like a river along the sidewalks, and Eren watches them in mild disinterest. He'd gotten off work two hours prior, but couldn't quite bring himself to return to his lonely little apartment with grimy windows and cold floors.

So here he is, shivering in his threadbare parka, when a little girl approaches him. She has smooth and shiny hair, the color of pennies, and a forgiving smile. 'Petra,' Eren thinks. He's seen her around before; this town wasn't that big. She'd always been with someone unfamiliar, however, and Eren let it be. 

"Hi!" Petra chirps, clarion and bright. Eren cracks a grin in response. He knows it probably looks forced and raw, but it is all he can muster. "You're the strange man, who works at the café right?" 

"You shouldn't be talking to strangers you know," Eren responds. Petra wrinkles her nose.

"My godfather owns the café, and you work there right? So you're not a stranger!" His grin widens to a smile, but threatens to crack in the bitter cold.

"Clever girl. But I think I am still a stranger to you, no matter how you twist the word's definition." Petra hops up on the bench next to Eren and swings her little, knobbly-kneed legs in tandem. 

"That's okay. If you do something bad, my daddy will know and he'll knock you right out," she gives Eren a gap-toothed smile, at odds with the threat she just imparted. "My daddy's the strongest of all daddies!" Eren's chest wrenches a little at that, but he tamps down on it viciously.

"Is that so?" He returns, rather amused. "Well I better be on my best behavior huh?" The little girl nods emphatically. 

Another voice cuts through the muted sounds of the busy street and the silence about to descend between the two lone figures on the park bench.

"Petra! Thank god, there you are. Don't you ever run off like that again, do you hear me?" 

Eren's heart stops. Oh no. Not him. Never him. The one person who once held Eren's world, and may even hold it now -- the barest brush of hope through the sludge of tar in his chest, the flicker of "please, let one person remember." But his inevitable disappointment will be crushing. Already Eren is preparing himself, hunching over his lap and crossing his arms in a bid to physically shield himself from the piercing gray eyes that he knows await his acknowledgment. 

"Daddy! This is Eren," Petra laughs, utterly unconcerned with her father's worry and the tension suddenly radiating from her newfound companion. 

"Eren?" The tone is curious, testing. Unsure, as if trying to recall a memory from behind the haze of uncertainty. "Do I know you?" 

The Levi Eren knew was never unsure. He was stoic, and always held a quiet sort of conviction that helped ground Eren. Eren, with his wild temper and incurable rage. Both of those things fled from him in this life, crushed by the yawning gap of nothingness and the knowledge that his friends, his family, his mentors -- all those he held dear -- could not even recall his name.

"No," he replies hollowly. "No, you don't."

"Oh," Levi says, blunt even in his awkwardness. After a moment of silence to which Eren offers up no reprieve, Levi turns back to his daughter. "Let's go, Petra." Petra jumps down from the bench without protest, going to grasp her father's hand. Levi tugs her along quickly, away from Eren. Always away from him, no matter who it was. Just before the pair disappears around the block, Petra turns back with a wide smile and and tiny fist raised in a wave.

"Bye Eren!" He returns the gesture haflheartedly, but it seems to be enough for little Petra. She giggles and faces forward again, turning slightly to smile up at Levi. Eren feels something clench, then give way. And the tears come. They trickle down his face, leaving tracks that seems especially sensitive to the ice-cold winter air. But still, he is silent. Eren has lost everything, over and over, with each new face he sees and each new face that doesn't remember. His sobs had quickly grown quiet, and they fell completely silent after Mikasa and Armin looked him in the eye without a single trace of recollect. 

It seems a cruel, awful curse, that Eren should continue to meet those precious to him in his past life of monsters and angels and so much bloodshed. It is as if they're dangled in front of him like a prize, but yanked away permanently once he goes to reach for them. He is going mad, driven past the edge of sanity by his own grief and guilt and loneliness. He needs someone to hold on to. To ground him.

But Eren wore the Wings of Freedom once, and they haven't let him touch solid earth since. 

______________

Sometimes Levi gets nightmares. He can never remember what happens within, but there is always a sense of failure and mourning that threatens to swallow him whole. He feels an uncomfortable pickle at the base of his neck and behind his eyes which signal the coming of tears unless he is quick to force them back. Levi never understands what it is he should be grieving. His wife doesn't either, and has expressed concern before. Nowadays, if the sobs overtake him before he has a chance to regain his bearings, he muffled them into a pillows as to not wake her.

This morning is different though. Instead of waking up tasting ash and regret, he tastes freedom. Camaraderie. The ocean. He tastes saltiness that isn't from his eyes, but rather from a memory.

A memory of green eyes and blue waves and the heavy weight of ghosts -- of friends, of lovers, of family -- that are finally put to rest.

Levi holds on to that memory, and lets it steady him as he rides out the storm of his emotions. 

Green and blue. Those two colors were immensely important to him, once upon a time. But now, he can't recall. It doesn't frustrate him though. Instead, it gives him peace. 

And so, with a final sigh, Levi releases his sorrow.

Green and blue fade from his mind's eye, and Levi lets them. There's no use pining over something more dream than reality.

He has this life to live, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes this is cliché as hell, yes I realize this, no I do not care. 
> 
> Bite me mofos.


End file.
